Kimberly-Clark Reports Progress Toward 2030 Sustainability Goals

Graphic Packaging International (“Graphic Packaging” or the “Company”), a global leader in sustainable consumer packaging, today announced it has entered into a virtual Power Purchase Agreement (“vPPA”) in Europe with Zelestra, a client-focused, multi-technology, global renewable energy company.The vPPA supports Zelestra in adding renewable electricity to the European power grid and advances Graphic Packaging’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions by receiving renewable energy attribute certificates[1] generated by the project. The renewable electricity generated by two of Zelestra’s solar projects to be built in Spain – José Cabrera and Socovos II – will have a combined total capacity of 83 megawatts (MWdc). Graphic Packaging expects to receive renewable energy attribute certificates1 corresponding to approximately 86 percent of the solar projects’ output. The agreement is a strategic component in achieving Graphic Packaging’s science-based target to reduce Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 50.4 percent by 20322. It will increase the Company’s purchased renewable electricity in Europe to approximately 70 percent.

The draft FSC US Controlled Wood National Risk Assessment for Alaska and Hawaii (US NRA-Part 2) is now available for public consultation. All stakeholders are invited to provide input on the draft NRA. Comments are due on December 23, 2019. Please find additional information on the consultation web page. The previously approved FSC US National Risk Assessment (NRA) for the conterminous United States (Part 1) did not address the states of Alaska or Hawaii, or US territories. This ‘Part 2’ NRA mostly closes that gap by assessing the risk of ineligible materials entering the FSC system from forests in Alaska and Hawaii. FSC certificate holders that wish to control non-certified forest materials from Alaska and Hawaii (so that those materials may be mixed with FSC certified materials for use in certified products that carry the FSC Mix label) will be required to incorporate the approved version of the Part 2 risk assessment into their due diligence system.

For decades now, billions of dollars in recycling infrastructure investment by the paper industry combined with support from consumers, communities and businesses have made the recycling of paper-based packaging an overwhelming success across North America. Even so, the great success story of recycled packaging has been muddled by competing claims between and among paper manufacturers and the environmental community about how much recycled content packaging products should contain. Unfortunately, consumers, brands and retailers have been badly served by the black-or-white nature of this debate. There’s no question that recycled content contributes to the sustainability of paper-based packaging and to a more sustainable, circular economy. But does every product have to contain 100% recycled content to be sufficiently sustainable, as some insist? The answer is no. To begin with, recycled fiber has to originate somewhere, and that origin is the virgin fiber that made up the paper product that got recycled in the first place. click read more below for additional information